Houston gets set for LRT extension

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority of Harris County is concluding final test runs on a light rail transit line addition for Houston, a northern extension that reaches into the heart of the nation's fourth-largest city.

MetroRail's Red Line extension is now scheduled to begin operations Saturday, Dec. 21, slightly in advance of earlier projected startup dates loosely set for early 2014.

The 5.3-mile, $756 million extension will run from the University of Houston-Downtown to the Northline Transit Center, roughly paralleling Interstate 45.

Two more LRT lines, the East End Line and the Southeast Line, still are scheduled to debut in 2014. Houston's initial 7.5-mile starter LRT line began operations in January 2004.